


Cherry

by aggiepuff, Whedonista93



Series: Mischief in the Blood [4]
Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, F/M, but just a smidge - Freeform, magic soulmates, poor jay, we soulmate ficced
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 20:49:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17815274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aggiepuff/pseuds/aggiepuff, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whedonista93/pseuds/Whedonista93
Summary: As Zaida recovers from the Isle, Jay starts magic lessons. But there's something Jordan isn't telling him and when Zaida emerges from her lamp something is most definitely wrong.





	Cherry

**Part 1**

Zaida doesn’t leave her lamp for three days. She attends classes via her magic mirror and Jordan hands her assignments in, but, other than Aziz and Ben, Jordan and Genie are the only ones allowed in her lamp.

On the second day, Jay stops by to check on her. Aziz answers the door and shakes his head. “Sorry, man. Z keeps having panic attacks and they’re not really safe for anyone unless you’ve got your own magic to shield yourself. Me’n Ben aren’t even allowed in without Jordan.”

Jay gives him an easy grin. “I do have magic.”

“But can you control it?”

Jay groans. “What is it with you kingly types and logic?”

Aziz scoffs, mock disgust on his face. “Kingly? How dare you? I’m gonna be a trophy husband like my dad.”

Jay grins. “Yeah, yeah.” He sobers again. “Just let her know I came by?”

Aziz clasps Jay’s shoulder, smiling at him. “I will. Now go. I know you’ve got lessons with Joy.”

Jay meets Joy in the gym and sighs through ten minutes of meditation— _It helps with control_ , Joy had told him—until Joy groans, shoving to her feet. She glares down at him. “You’re impossible.”

Jay scrambles to his feet. “What’d I do?”

“The moping. I cannot _stand_ another minute of the moping.”

“I am _not_ moping,” Jay pouts.

Joy snorts. “Yeah. You are.” Seeing Jay’s deflation, she sighs. “Look. I get it. I’m worried about her, too. But when she gets better she’s gonna be pissed if you don’t have at least the basics down and then she’s going to come after _me_. Do you know how painful that would be? And if I’m in pain, I’m going to make sure to spread it around.”

Jay can’t help himself, he laughs.

He’s not laughing on the fourth day of Zaida’s self-imposed isolation when he wakes to find Zaida’s lamp on his nightstand. He stares at the thing. The gold inlays shine in the sunlight filtering through the curtains and the red metal gleams.

He blinks stupidly.

Zaida’s lamp. In his room.

Red smoke pours from the mouth and Jay scrambles back, toppling off the mattress in a tangle of sheets. He flounders until he gets turned right side round then peers over his bed.

Zaida stands in the middle of his room. She looks healthier than last time he saw her on the docks. Her warm brown skin glows and the rising sun glints off the natural red undertone of her black hair. Curved and fit, with full lips, intelligent black eyes and a strong nose, she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen and Jay can’t find it in himself to say a word.

She looks around, sees no one, and leaves. Jay stays on the floor, staring after her, until Carlos asks in a sleep rough voice, “Jay, man, what are you doing?”

“Did you see that?” he asks, staring at the closed door.

“See what?”

“Zaida. Her lamp is here and she just—she just smoked out and left. Like it’s not big deal. _Why is her lamp here?_ ”

“Dude,” Carols groans, turning onto his back, “what did you smoke?”

“I didn’t! _She_ did!”

“Whatever, man. Wake me up when it’s time to go to class.”

 

* * *

 

**Part 2**

Zaida’s in their Chemistry class, sitting next to Lonnie like it’s any other day. Jay thinks he might have caught her glancing at him a couple times over her shoulder, but he can’t tell for sure. He watches her leave with Lonnie when the bell rings, her high black ponytail swinging across her back.

Jay takes Zaida’s lamp back to Aziz’s and Ben’s room after fourth period. Ben opens the door and frowns at him. “What are you doing with Zaida’s lamp?”

“Hell if I know. Found it in my room this morning. Put it back on your windowsill.”

Ben laughs, taking the lamp. “You do realize that if it was in your room Zaida probably put it there, right?”

“Yeah, well, it was probably by accident.”

Jay starts to doubt that Zaida’s lamp is in his room by accident when he gets back to his room after R.O.A.R practice and it’s sitting on his nightstand again.

He stares at it. _I’m too tired for this_.

He turns and heads for the shower. He expects the lamp to be gone by the time he gets out, but no. It’s still sitting there on his nightstand. He’ll take it back to Aziz’s and Ben’s room in the morning. He’s too sore and too tired to deal with this right now.

 

* * *

 

**Part 3**

“Why do you have Z’s lamp?”

Jay turns. Jordan eyes him from the other end of the hall, eyebrow raised. “I, ah,” Jay laughs nervously, “I’m not really sure. It keeps showing up in my room.”

“Ah, that’s how she’s playing it.”

Jay frowns. “What’re you talking about?”

Jordan shakes her head. “You should really talk to Zaida.”

Unfortunately, no one tells Jane that. She walks in on Jay during Joy’s meditation lesson and squeals so loud Jay’s ears ring.

“She _gave_ you her _lamp_ ,” Jane gushes. “This is _huge_.”

Jay glances uncomfortably at his backpack. The top of the lamp sticks up from the pocket and he wishes he’d left the damn thing in his room.

Joy chases Jane out of the room with a stream of hot pink sparkles that snap and sizzle at the other fairy’s heels. With a roll of her eyes she returns to the mat across from Jay and sits. “Ignore her.”

Jay scowls. “What is the big deal with the stupid lamps, anyway?” he demands.

Joy lifts her eyebrows. “Zaida really should be the one explaining all this,” she mutters.

“Yeah, well, she hasn’t exactly been herself lately,” Jay snaps. His fingers tingle and he growls, trying to force down the hot anger in his chest. Slowly, the cherry red glow fades and he rubs his fingers together. He’s not sure he’ll ever get used to this whole having magic thing.

“Fine,” Joy sighs. Fixing Jay with serious, black eyes, she says, “A djinn’s lamp is the source of their power. Zaida and Jordan aren’t bound to the Rule of the Wish but they _are_ bound to their lamps. They have to be careful with them. Someone can do a lot of damage with the magic in those lamps. They can only be entrusted to someone they trust explicitly, without reservation. Makes sense?”

“Yeah, but why _me_?”

“You saved her,” Joy says, as if that explains everything. When Jay just stares she signs. “You literally went and saved her from literal death.”

“Yeah, but that was just--”

Joy holds up a hand, cutting him off. “That was _everything_.”

 

* * *

 

**Part 4**

Joy’s _everything_ echoes in his brain as he lays in bed that night, staring at the ceiling. Zaida’s lamp glints silver in the moonlight beside his bed. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to give it back. He’s pretty sure Zaida smoked in while he was at R.O.A.R. practice but he hadn’t wanted to knock and find out.

Of course, he doesn’t need to find out the next morning when his eyes pop open and the ceiling is covered by sheer golden drapes. A plush fur blanket soft as a cloud and definitely not his school-issued comforter covers him from neck to toes. His eyes follow the fold of gold high above him, spying scrolling stitchwork down the edge all the way to the top of a mosaic of a whole family of dark skinned, black-haired people, a blue man to the back left of the group, what looks like an ornate purple carpet standing on two tassels, a massive tiger, and a monkey on one of the men’s shoulder.

Ice fills Jay’s veins.

Movement, the rustle of sheets, pulls Jay’s attention to his right. He stares, eyes wide, as a shadow moves across red and gold curtains obscuring a round bed. A moment later, Zaida pulls the curtain aside and shrieks.

Jay topples off the lounger, popping up a moment later, hands raised in defense.

“What the _hell_ are you doing in here?” Zaida demands.

“I don’t know!” Jay yells back. “I was in my room then when I woke up I was here! What did you do to me?”

“Me?” Zaida demands, shooting to her feet in outrage. Belatedly, Jay remembers to avert his gaze but not before getting an eye-full of Zaida in her hot pink sports bra and black spandex shorts. Allah, he is going to hell. Despite the guilt, he can’t bring himself to mind the trip as long as he gets to go with that image in his head.

Zaida, realizing where his eyes were, shrieks in wordless rage and snatches up the gold fleece robe crumpled on the floor. “I didn’t do anything,” she snaps, yanking the robe around herself and tying it closed. “I was asleep! Then I woke up and you were here! Why are you here?!”

“I don’t know!” Jay repeats, waving his arms. A piece of paper dislodges from the folds of the blanket still wrapped around his shoulders.

Zaida stares at it fluttering to the oriental rug. “What’s that?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“It was on you!”

“Doesn’t mean it’s mine!”

“Just read it!”

Jay snatches it up but when he unfolds the note, he stomach sinks; he recognizes the curling handwriting. “It’s from Jordan,” he says.

“ _Shiiiiiiiiit_.”

“She says ‘Your lamp is sealed so get over yourself and get your ass in gear. TELL HIM THE TRUTH.’” Jay looks up from the note. “That last bit is all capitalized.”

Zaida groans, flopping back onto her bed.

Jay shuffles around the lounger to peer down at her. “What’s she talking about?”

Zaid grabs a pillow and presses it over her face, groaning into the red silk. Jay snatches the pillow away. “You’ve been avoiding me for a week,” he accuses, chest tight in irritation. “What’s going on?”

Zaida sighs, sitting up. “Fine.” Her shoulders slump and she finally meets Jay’s eyes. There’s so much fear there, so much anxiety. Jay almost takes a step back. She seems so vulnerable, looking up at him. He’s not used to seeing Zaida as anything but strong and indomitable. He waits as patiently as he can until, finally, she says, “Have you ever heard of Soulmates?”

Jay frowns. “Isn’t that kind of like One True Love?”

“Eh, a little. I mean, Soulmate can be One True Love, but it doesn’t have to be, and One True Love can be Soulmates, but it doesn’t have to be. And sometimes a person can have both, someone who is Soulmate and another who is One True Love.”

“Okay?”

Zaida frowns. “Soulmates are...Soulmates are like socks.” At Jay’s incredulous look she sighs again. “Yeah, I know, not the best analogy, but it kinda works. See, every person is a sock, whole and complete on their own. And any one sock can work with any other sock, but Soulmates are the socks that match, you know? They’re a pair. Romantic, platonic, doesn’t matter. They work best together. ”

“So...how does a person know they’ve found their Soulmate?”

“Magic, usually,” Zaida says. “But the magical community knows the moment they lay eyes on each other.”

Jay frowns. “How?”

“Magic,” Zaida says simply.

Jay frowns. “You already said that.”

Zaida snorts. “I _meant_ , for magicians, fey, witches, wizards, djinn--for any magic user, we can tell who our Soulmate is by the color of their magic, because it matches ours.”

“Matches...like…?”

Zaida nods. “Yeah, like ours matches.”

Jay stumbles back, catching himself on the lounge. Carefully, he lowers himself to the plush upholstery, head spinning. _Soulmates...that’s….that’s_... He couldn’t find the words for it.

“Remember, it doesn’t have to mean romantic,” Zaida says quickly. “We can just as easily be platonic.”

That snaps Jay from his own head. “Platonic? But I thought...I mean… well, we were heading somewhere, before, weren’t we?”

Relief washes over Zaida’s face. “I thought we were, too,” she quickly reassures him, “but I didn’t want to push.”

Something warm rises in Jay’s chest. His eyelids lower and a smirk creeps across his face. “Really now?” He asks, voice husky. He slides off the lounger, moving to beside Zaida on the bed. His arms sneaks out to wrap carefully around her waist.

Zaida rolls her eyes. “Don’t get cocky.” But she doesn’t move away so Jay counts that as a win.  



End file.
